Trials and Tribulations
by ArabianNights18
Summary: A young girl in post-apocalyptic Colorado is granted her wish to be taken away. But before she can leave the world for good, she must pass a series of challenges. Partially based on Pan's Labyrinth. Some mature themes. Alternate Universe.  JarethXSarah


_This is my cross between Pan's Labyrinth and Jim Henson's Labyrinth. It's set in a post-apocalyptic world, partially inspired by the book Armageddon's Children by Terry Brooks. I highly recommend it. Anyway, please review. I want to see if there is enough interest for me to continue writing this. Enjoy!_

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><p>Jinx clutched her prize tightly as she crawled over the rubble, eyes shifting back and forth warily. She paused every few yards, making sure that she was alone. After a thorough scan up and down the street, she disappeared into a crumbling building somewhere along the outskirts of what had once been Denver, Colorado. Now it was little more than a crumbling pile of concrete and twisted metal.<p>

It had been many long years since the city had actually been a city. Slowly, the earth was starting to reclaim it. Weeds were gradually breaking the buildings apart, more so than the bombs that had destroyed it originally. Colorado had largely been saved from the devastation that had ravaged the coastal regions of the United States. Most of the cities along the coast were uninhabitable due to the nuclear war that had destroyed mankind generations ago. Only small pockets of life still existed, mostly in the more rural areas of the world. Europe had been entirely decimated, as had East Asia. Since the destruction of global communications, there had been little intercontinental contact. No one knew for sure what areas had survived, but it was rumored that at least Australia had survived most of the damage.

It was Jinx's dream to make it to Australia. She had grown up on the stories of the paradise that was supposed to still exist across the globe. A Garden of Eden in a world of fire and ash. As she pushed aside the curtain that covered the doorway to her small hideaway, she sighed, looking at the stack of books she'd collected on the land Down Under. As a little girl, she'd wished every night to go to Australia. But when her parents died when she was fourteen, she had given up. Wishes didn't come true. You had to make your own future.

Suddenly, Jinx felt something collide with her back, knocking her on her face. She rolled over quickly, and saw a flash of white fangs before the beast was upon her. She screamed.

"Sydney! Stop it!" Jinx laughed as she tried to push off the large dog that now stood on her chest, licking her face. Once she was able to sit up, her eyes met those of her canine companion. Sydney was a tall, short haired dog with black and brown spotting, one ear erect the other folded over. In another time she would have been considered a German Sheppard cross, but true dog breeds hadn't been recognized in over a hundred years. Jinx didn't care anyway. She just loved the dog.

"I brought you something," she said, pulling a piece of crumpled paper out of her jacket. Unfolding it, she pulled out a dead mouse. Sydney immediately crouched down, her butt in the air as her tail wagged furiously. Jinx laughed and threw the mouse in the air, so Sydney could jump up and catch it. The dog didn't disappoint.

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><p>Jinx crept through city ruins, which she knew by heart. She knew the safe areas and the dangerous ones. The dangers were largely from other people, raiders mostly. The raiders traveled from city to city, finding pockets of civilization and causing trouble and violence. They tended to stay in the same areas though, not entering the more obscure areas of the city. Lucky for Jinx, those areas tended to still have some materials to scavenge. The more central areas had long been looted of all useful resources.<p>

Unfortunately, she wasn't so lucky today.

"Hey look at this boys! A little lost girl. I think we should help her." Jinx spun around and saw a raggedly dressed man armed to the teeth standing in front of an alley to her left. Nervously, her head swiveled around, catching sight of three, four, five…at least a dozen men appearing from the buildings around her. Raiders.

"I'm not lost thanks. And I've got nothing of value so you mine as well just leave me be."

"Oh I think you do," laughed a man to her right. "Just takes a little digging." This caused raucous laughter from the men. It didn't take a genius to figure out what they had in mind. Desperately, Jinx picked up a rock and hurled it at the closest man, before running down the street away from the group. But she wasn't fast enough.

"Where you going little lady?" One of the men said, grabbing her around the waist and hoisting her into the air. Shouting loudly, Jinx started screaming, thrashing about madly. She managed to land a few good kicks, but the man was well protected with thick leathers, so they didn't make much of a difference.

"Give me a hand will ya?" the man said stiffly as she managed to elbow him in the side of the head, making him grunt in pain.

"You look like you're doing fine there by yourself."

"Yeah, can't hold one little girl?"

"She's stronger than she looks," the first man said, managing to get a better grip on Jinx. He pushed her down on the ground roughly, pinning her thin frame between the cracked pavement and his dirty body. Jinx knew what came next.

She started tearing up, trying desperately to get free. Suddenly, she felt her limbs released. She looked up, scrambling away from the men as fast as she can, her back hitting a rusted car frame. It took her a moment to realize what had happened.

Sydney had apparently arrived on the scene, and immediately launched herself at the man on top of her. She now had his throat in her teeth, shaking him violently. His screams filled the air as he thrashed around but was unable to break free, until irony took its full grip and the dog snapped his neck. His limp body fell in a heap as Sydney released him and looked up at the surrounding men, growling.

This had all happened so fast that the men hadn't recovered from shock quick enough to save the man on the ground. But as Sydney looked up at them, blood dripping from her jaws, the closest men raised their guns.

"Fucking bitch!" the closest man on the right yelled, and pulled the trigger, peppering the dog with gunfire. The dog fell to the ground, her blood mixing with her victim's. Jinx screamed, stumbling forward towards the dog, forgetting her own safety. She pulled the dog's body onto her lap, cradling her head and weeping.

"NO! NO! SYDNEY!" she screamed as the men wrenched her away from the bloody pile, and began tearing off her ragged clothes. Her best friend had died in front of her, and all for nothing. She was still going to be raped savagely.

As she lay on the ground, covered in blood and surrounded by the Raiders. She closed her eyes, waiting for the worst. In her mind, she kept repeating the same thing over and over again: _I wish I was anywhere but here. Please, take me away from this place._

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><p>When Jinx woke up, she kept her eyes shut. She could feel bruises all over her body, and not much else. She didn't want to be awake. She'd hoped her ordeal would have killed her. She wanted to be dead.<p>

She lay still for the longest time. Sooner or later, someone or something would come along and kill her. She just had to be patient. She wasn't expecting it to be quite so soon though.

"I know you're awake. Why don't you sit up and talk to me?"

Jinx sat up abruptly, but immediately her eyes started watering from the pain, so she couldn't see what was happening. As her vision cleared, she closed her eyes again, not believing what she saw.

"Who the hell are you?" Jinx asked. "And where the hell am I?"

She was sitting on a hill of emerald green grass under an orange sky. In front of her stood the strangest looking man she had ever seen. He was tall with long sandy-blonde hair and medieval clothing she'd only ever seen in books. He looked…regal.

"I am Jareth, the Goblin King. You are in the Underground. And you shouldn't be so rude to me if you know what's good for you."

"Oh yeah? Why's that?"

"Because, I granted your wish."

"What wish?"

"To be anywhere but where you were when I found you."

Jinx felt a wave of sadness cover her as she thought about last night. Sydney had died. Shot by those villainous raiders. Tears welled in her eyes as she thought about the lost dog and what had been done to her. But, she didn't remember it actually happening: she'd blacked out before that. For the best, she supposed.

"Don't cry, my dear. I took you away before you were violated." Jinx narrowed her eyes at the man Jareth, skeptical of his claims.

"Really? And how do I know I can trust you? What makes you better than the Raiders?"

"I have the power to take you away from your life in the Aboveground. Isn't that what you want?"

Jinx stayed silent. He was offering her a chance to get away. She wanted nothing more than that. At least, she had before. In her fantasies, Sydney had always been with her. She didn't think she could go on without her.

"I don't know really," Jinx said truthfully. "Life doesn't seem worth living anymore."

"There is always still reason to live, Sarah," he said. Jinx looked up sharply.

"What did you just call me?"

"Sarah. That is your name isn't it? Or, at least it was."

"I haven't used that name since Mom and Dad died," she said quietly. "Just my name made me sick to my stomach. It was the last word Mom said before she died." Tears were welling up in her eyes again.

"I think you should start using it again, my dear. It'll be important in the future."

"What do you mean?" Jinx, formerly Sarah, said with a sniff.

"If your wish is to get away from your current life, then you must prove yourself worthy to be given your heart's desire. Do you still wish to escape?"

Sarah stayed quiet again. Sydney was special, but Sarah didn't think her own survival instinct would switch off and let her just sit and die, no matter how much she hurt. She would live, either in the ruined city or in this so-called paradise the man was offering her. Even if it wasn't a paradise, her life couldn't really get much worse.

"Yes," she said finally. "I want to be free from my life."

The Goblin King smiled at her, in an almost sinister way. Sarah couldn't help but feel that there was something he was hiding from her.

"So what must I do? You said I had to prove myself."

"Yes, I did say that," Jareth said softly, choosing his words carefully, saying each meticulously. "For you to truly exist outside your own world, you must prove you have the will and worth to be a given a new life. I will return you to your own world, and from there you must complete three tasks for me. I will provide each individually, one after the other. If you fail at any of these three tasks, you shall be forever blocked from the life in paradise you so desire."

"What is the first task I must complete?" Sarah asked, starting to get nervous. Prove her worth? She was a child of the streets. She wasn't worth anything to anyone, let alone this magical king.

"You will know soon enough," he said. He held out his hand, in which he held a perfect glass orb, which shimmered in the orange light. Looking at him and then at the orb, Sarah reached for it slowly. An inch before she touched it, she looked up at Jareth again, her eyes meeting hers. His face was blank, neither encouraging or discouraging her to continue. So she went the next inch and touched the glass. She remembered nothing more.


End file.
